How to disable Download Panel automatic opening in Firefox

When you download anything in the Firefox browser, you may have noticed that the Download Panel automatically pops up. What you don’t know is that the browser allows you to disable Download Panel automatic opening in Firefox. In this post, we are going to see how you can do the same.

Disable Download Panel automatic opening in Firefox

If you want to disable Download Panel automatic opening in Firefox, then try the following method.

1. Open Mozilla Firefox on your computer.
2. Go to the Download icon, if it’s not there, try downloading something, that will make the icon appear.
3. Now, right-click on the icon and uncheck Show Panel When Download Begins.

That’s it, you won’t be seeing the download panel when the download starts. Now, if you want to see the download progress, just click on the icon and there it will be.

The download icon in firefox doesn’t appear unless you have downloaded something previously during your current session. Now that, you have disabled the download panel, you might want to make the download icon visible at all times. To do the same, right-click on the icon and uncheck the Hide Button When Empty option.

Also Read: How to enable Download Prompt on Firefox

How do I enable download prompt in Firefox?

To enable the download prompt in Firefox, you can do the same steps that we did earlier when trying to disable it. Just open Firefox, right-click on the Download icon, and tick Show Panel When Download Begins. Now, every time you start downloading something, the download prompt will appear.

Read: How to get Firefox Vertical Tabs on Windows PC

How do I change download settings in Firefox?

Firefox allows you to change a lot of its download settings. You can change the download location, clear the history and change a lot of things in the Firefox browser. In this section, we are going to talk about it and change the following download settings in Firefox.

1. Change Download Location in Firefox
2. Clear Download History
3. Change Download Actions

Let us see how to change these settings.

1] Change Download Location in Firefox

By default, when you download something from any browser, the content gets saved in the online download folder. This may be convenient for some, but for some users, it is a hassle. That’s why we are going to see how you can change the download location in Firefox. Follow the prescribed steps to do the same.

1. Open Firefox browser.
2. Click on the three horizontal lines.
3. Select Settings.
4. In the General tab, look for Files and Application.
5. Click on the Browse button from the Downloads section.
6. Go to the folder where you want the files to be saved and select it.

Now, every time, you download any content from the web using the Firefox browser, it will be saved in the selected folder.

2] Clear Download History

Just like any other browser, Firefox allows you to clear download history. It is a simple process. You can view your search history, by clicking on the download icon and selecting Show all downloads. Now, if you feel like you want to delete all of them, just click on the menu (three horizontal lines) and then on History > Clear recent history.

A dialog box will pop with a lot of different options. You need to make sure that only the Browsing & download history is ticked, change the Time range to clear to Everything, and click on Ok. This will clear all your history. You can also clear cache in Firefox, read our guide on how to do the same.

3] Change Download Actions

You can also change what should be done with a particular file type. To do the same, follow the prescribed steps.

1. Open Firefox browser.
2. Click on the three horizontal lines.
3. Select Settings.
4. In the General tab, navigate to Applications.
5. Select a particular file type, click on the drop-down menu from the Action column and set it according to your liking.

You can do this to every file type on the list. If a file type is not on the list, see the “What should Firefox do with other files?” option and then select Ask whether to open or save files. This will give you options.

Hopefully, now you can make Firefox behave according to your choice.

There is one more thing that we didn’t mention as it’s not a setting option, but you can actually make the downloading quicker in the browser. Check our guide on how to increase download speed in Firefox.

Read: Reset or Refresh Firefox browser settings to default

How do I stop Firefox from automatically downloading PDF files?

One of the most frustrating things is when you click on a PDF file to open it, but Firefox starts downloading the file. Well! you can actually stop Firefox from doing that. Just click on three horizontal dots, select Settings, scroll down to reach Applications, look for Portable Document Format (PDF) and change it to Always ask or Open in Firefox.

Read: How to block Web Notification requests in Chrome, Firefox, Edge Browser.